Stephanie HurtBiological

Prefrontal cortex

The prefrontal cortex is still developing during this stage in the lifecycle called

adolescence. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25. So, adolescences

have an immature prefrontal cortex biologically.

Having an immature prefrontal cortex may cause risky and impulsive behaviors that you

see in adolescences. These things can be unprotected sex, looking at play boy, pornography,

obesity, joining gangs, drunk driving, underage drinking, drug dealing, giving into peer pressure,

bullying and to get extreme, murder.

The prefrontal cortex is in the front part of the brain. It is responsible for complex

thinking such as looking into the future and solving complicated problems. Having an immature

brain makes it harder for the adolescent to see their future and/or thinking that far into their

future.

It is also responsible for decision making such as whether drinking and driving is a smart

choice or not .In an adolescents head, they might not think about the consequences drinking and

driving can have on others and themselves if they were to get into an accident. It this case of

murder, the adolescent might not think about the consequences it can have on them for doing this

crime and the effect it can have on the other person that they murdered. They also might not

think about the effect it can have on the family of the victim because they don’t think that

complexly yet.

The prefrontal cortex is also responsible for regulating behavior. An example of this

would be how I talk to others or address others. An adolescent with an immature prefrontal

cortex might talk to their parents and others very sharply and not think about how they are

making other feel when they do that.

The prefrontal cortex is also responsible for making choices between right and wrong

such as not to murder someone because it’s against the law. An adolescent with an immature

prefrontal cortex might think that there reasoning makes it ok to do or that in the moment they

thought what they were doing was right.

It is also responsible for evaluation such as if my acts are going to hurt others. The

adolescent might not evaluate how this action is going to affect the others involved. They don’t

think about stepping back and evaluating the situation at hand which can be dangerous in a

heated argument.

The prefrontal cortex is also responsible for impulse control. Some examples would be

whether I should be having sex without a condom or I am so mad that I want to kill someone.

Adolescences with an immature brain have a hard time thinking about these decisions. They

might just do them because they don’t think they will get in trouble for it.

It also controls personality such as how I am around others. How adolescence act around

others is different than how adults act around others. Adolescences have hypothetico-dectuctive

reasoning. This can also be called adolescent egocentrism which is the believe that their

thoughts, beliefs, and feelings are unique. They see themselves as the only ones in the world that

think the way they do. Well this can be a problem because it’s not logical.

Adolescences also form personal fables in their head. This means that they think the

whole world is thinking about them. They basically form a fable about themselves. This can be

dangerous because they can mistakenly think there invisible from consequence.

Adolescences also have an imaginary audience in their head. Basically they act out in

their head how people will respond to their behavior. This can put false ideas in their head and

can confuse what is actually going on.

Well during adolescence, this part of the brain is still developing so there are many

missing pieces that still need to form in the prefrontal cortex. During this stage in the lifespan,

the prefrontal cortex mostly contains grey matter. Gray matter is bad during adolescence. It

means there is less ability to foresee consequences of actions and it’s a sign that different skills

haven’t developed in their brain. Now the opposite of grey matter is white matter. White matter

makes the prefrontal cortex able to have more impulse control, and make better decisions. White

matter makes the brain more mature. During the ages of 10 to 25, the brain is going through

synaptic pruning. Synaptic pruning makes more white matter in the prefrontal cortex. The brain

goes through this process up until the age of 25 when the brain is the most efficient it is going to

get.

The adolescent isn’t completely mature in the biological development and does not have

all of the materials in this part of the brain to make a sound and logical decision. The adolescent

still knows right from wrong partly. As the adolescent getting older and farther along in

adolescent time frame, their brain is developing more and more. This means a 12 year old and a

20 year old don’t have the same amount of white matter in their brain to make certain decisions.

The 20 year old is farther along in this process and has more white matter. The 12 year old has

more gray matter and still has a lot of maturing to do. In the later part of adolescence, that’s

when you have more freedoms. For example, at 18 years old you can vote, buy cigarettes, and

buy lottery tickets. At 21, you can gamble, and buy alcohol. The older you get in this process the

bigger decisions you get to make.

Some would argue that the age should be higher with all of these freedoms because the

brain is still developing white matter and the substance could harm that process. Others would

say that everything should be allowed at 18. The people that say that most of the time, don’t

know about how the prefrontal cortex works during the period of adolescence.

In the movie Juno, she exhibited many characteristics of her prefrontal cortex

immaturity. She had very impulsive behaviors. She had sarcasm in every sentence. No matter

who she talked to. Another impulsive behavior was when she had unprotected sex with her best

friend and got pregnant. Then her next impulsive behavior occurred when she when to the

Women Now clinic and she impulsively ran out and decided on adoption. She is like other

adolescent where they don’t think about long run things. So the stepmom helped her plan and set

out her healthy eating.

Endocrine system

Puberty is a time of muscular, skeptical, and sexual reproductive growth. The time

puberty starts is determined during your fertilization and encoding into your genes. Social things

can also influence the time of puberty. The genetic table is different for everyone. Puberty is

triggered by the endocrine system. The endocrine system does so many things all at one time and

has many parts. The endocrine system effects all the changes from your head to your pelvis. The

endocrine system is a chemical communication network. It sends messages to your body through

your bloodstream. It communicates through hormones.

The pituitary gland then triggers puberty. This gland sends signals to the gonadotropins.

This is a hormone that stimulates the sex glands to increase production of the sex hormones to

adult levels. Once that happens the sex hormones get to work. First, the primary sex

characteristics form. These are characteristics that associate with the development of the organs

and structures of the body that directly relate to reproduction. Secondary sex characteristics are

visible signs of sexual maturity that do not involve the sex organ directly. Androgens

(testosterone) are the male hormone that masculinizes the body and Estrogen (estradiol) is the

female hormone that feminizes the body. The androgens increase the male’s height, weight, and

size of genitals, muscles, skeleton and voice. The estrogen enlarges the breast, uterus, and

increases the height and weight of the female.

The pituitary gland works with the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a part of the brain

that controls and watches basic drives such as eating, drinking, self-protection, and sexual

behavior. This part of the brain may be small but it is super important when it comes to puberty.

The hypothalamus is especially important during puberty because it is a part of a complex

feedback system involving the pituitary gland and the sexual organs.

The endocrine system communicates to the hypothalamus, pituitary gland,

parathyroid/thyroid gland, thymus, adrenal gland, ovary, and testis. The pituitary gland,

hypothalamus, and the gonads form a feedback loop involving the HPG axis. HPG means

hypothalamus, pituitary and gonads. The HPG axis loop regulates hormone production. The

hypothalamus contains gonadastat, which is basically a thermostat, and is sensitive to the amount

of hormones in the blood stream. Each part signals one another.

Pituitary gland produces FSH and LH, which determine the levels of sex hormones.

These maintain the feedback loop. FSH means follicle-stimulating hormone. This stimulates

sperm production in testes of male and stimulates follicle production in ovaries of females. LH

means lutenizing hormone. This regulates testosterone production in males and regulates

estrogen and egg production in females. Adrenarche is the hormonal changes in adrenal glands

that produce adrenal androgens. This happens around age 6-9 years old. This is the prelude and

start of puberty. The gonadarche starts maturation processes in males and females. This is the

beginning of puberty. This begins around 9-10 in females and 10-11 years old in males.

The hypothalamus signals to the gonadstat. Then the gonadstat signals to the pituitary

gland. Then the pituitary gland lets off FSH and LH. The FSH and LH signal to the gonads. Then

the gonads let off androgen and estrogens. These hormones are sent to the hypothalamus and the

process goes through again.

Leptin is getting a lot of attention now. Due to the obesity rate growing in America,

children are starting puberty earlier. Leptin might have something to do with this. Leptin is

protein reduced by fat cells. When leptin reacts a certain level, puberty beginning. Around 110

pounds is the critical level for girls. This weight is being reached a lot earlier so, we are seeing

3rd graders starting there period and males starting puberty quicker. The obesity rate has tripled

and we don’t know yet the long-term effects of starting puberty earlier. The fact that 1 in 5

adolescents are overweight, and 1 in 20 are obese is alarming. During the time of adolescence,

the teen is trying to figure out what their identity is and being over weight during this time could

have major psychological consequence in the long run. The consequence would be obese adults

and 80% of obese teens are heading that way. Obesity in general is not a good thing what’s so

ever. Obesity puts more strain on the circulatory system, which make a person more at risk for

high blood pressure, and diabetes. Some teens are at risk to become obese when their born.

Obesity can be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Some

environmental factors could be the culture, school, friends, and surroundings.

Self-image is very important to adolescence. For some teenagers, becoming fat is out of

the question. So, that’s why eating disorders happen. The fear of fat and the desire to avoid

obesity is the reason for some eating disorders. The two most common ones are anorexia nervosa

and bulimia. Anorexia nervosa is a severe and potentially life threatening eating disorder in

which individuals refuse to eat while denying that there behavior or skeletal appearance is out of

the ordinary. Bulimia is an eating disorder that primarily afflicts adolescent girls and young

women, characterized by binges on large quantities of food followed by purges of the food

through vomiting or the use of laxatives. After the person eats a lot of food they feel guilty and

depressed so they rid themselves of it by throwing up. This disorder can cause a chemical

imbalance that can lead to heart failure. Both disorders are difficult to treat and there are many

mixes of therapy they can go through.

The cognitive, psychosocial, and biological all work together. In this case, the biological

is affecting the cognitive and the cognitive is affecting the psychosocial. The feedback loop is so

important to the adolescent’s puberty.

In the movie Juno, she is had a developing endocrine system. She is 16 years old and

still growing. Her sexual reproductive organs are still developing but she is extremely fertile. She

hasn’t stopped growing yet. Carrying a baby in her immaturely developed body is dangerous.

Chemically, the pregnancy changes her hormone and the system becomes different.

Cognitive

Formal Operational Thought

A Swiss psychologist named Piaget as a theory that all people pass in a fixed sequence

through a series of universal stages of cognitive development. The four stages in the theory are

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. In this theory, the

movement form one stage to the next happens when a person reaches a certain level of physical

maturation and is exposed to relevant experiences. If the person doesn’t go through the

experiences they are assumed to be incapable of reaching there cognitive potential. Other theory

talk about the content of children’s knowledge about the world but Piaget focuses on the quality

of children’s and adolescent knowledge and understanding as they move from one stage to the

next.

The first stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is sensorimotor. This stage is from birth

to age 2. Basically during this stage the infant is trying to make sense of the world and it’s

surroundings. The infant is limited because it can only acknowledge the world through senses.

The senses are like sucking, grasping, and listening, which they use to understand their

environment. The toddler goes through object permanence, which means the child understands

that objects exist even though you can see or hear them. An example would be peek-a-boo

because when younger in this stage the toddler actually thinks the person is gone but with age

they stop believing that. There are sub stages in this stage. The first one is reflexes, second is

primary circular reactions, third is secondary circular reactions, fourth is coordination of

reactions, fifth is tertiary circular reactions, and sixth is early representational thought.

The second stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is preoperational. This age occur

from 2 to 7 years old. Language development is a big thing during this age. If it isn’t learned

during this stage, you can’t develop it at all in the future. During this stage, children learn

symbols, play, and pretend. During this stage, egocentrism, and conservation happens.

The third stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is concrete operational. This stage

begins at age 7 and continues to 11. During this stage, children minds become more advanced.

They have difficultly understanding abstract concepts. During this stage, children develop logic,

and reversibility.

Piaget talks about how a human thinking is arranged into schemes. Schemes are

organized mental patterns that represent behaviors and actions. As a person ages the schemes

become more abstract and sophisticated. They go from sucking as an infant to playing

instruments. Piaget talks about the two principles that associate with the growth in schemes. The

first one is assimilation and the second one is accommodation. Assimilation is the process by

which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development

and way of thinking. This occurs when a stimulus is acted on, perceived and understood threw

patterns of thought. Accommodations are changes in existing ways of thinking that occur in

response to encounters with new stimuli or events. An example of this would be moving from

using a tricycle to a bicycle. They are similar enough that you can use the information you know

from the tricycle to help you use a bicycle. It may be difficult to learn how to balance on the

bicycle because that wasn’t an element with the tricycle but with maturity and experience the

person will ride smoothly in no time.

In this stage people develop the ability to think abstractly. According to Piaget, it starts

when a person reaches the start of adolescence around the age of 12. Using formal principles to

solve problems benefits the adolescent because they now think abstractly rather than in concrete

terms. With this skill adolescence are able to test their understanding by systematically carrying

out basic experiments on problems and situations and observing what their experimental

interventions. This stage in Piaget’s theory uses hypotheticodeductive reasoning. This means

they start with a basic theory about what makes a certain outcome and then deduce explanations

for specific situations in which they see that outcome. Basically, it like in science class when you

have a theory and then you test it out to see if it has the outcome you thought it would have.

During this formal operational stage, propositional thought occurs. This is reasoning that

uses abstract logic in the absence of concrete examples. Piaget makes an interesting point that

when an adolescent starts this stage all of the capabilities don’t just appear. They develop slowly

and appear through a combination of physical maturation and environmental experiences. That’s

why 21 years olds are more mature mentally then a 12 year old but it depends on the person.

Some people aren’t mature and have the mental capacity of at 12 years old when they are 16.

Another interesting thing Piaget said is that some people don’t fully develop this until later and

some don’t use it at all. Some people don’t use formal operational thinking constantly. One

reason for that is that people are lazy and rely on intuition and mental shortcuts rather than

formal reasoning. People are also more eager to use thinking abstractly to something familiar to

them because people find unfamiliar situations more difficult to apply formal operations.

Another interesting aspect Piaget talks about is that adolescence differs in their use of

formal operational because of the culture in which they were raised. Adolescence that live in

isolated areas lack scientific orientation and have barely any formal education is less likely to

perform at a formal operational level than an educated person living in a culture with a lot of

technology. When adolescence transition to this stage they become more argumentative. They

find happiness using abstract thinking to poke holes into people’s explanations. That’s why when

parents tell them not to cuss and then the parents cuss the adolescent never lets them forget it.

This ability can be a good thing and a bad thing. Bad because it can drive the parent, teacher,

and/or supervisor crazy because they are questioning all the time. Good because it can make the

adolescent more interesting, actively seeking to understand the values and justifications that they

encounter in their lives.

In the movie Juno, she has many characteristics of the formal operational thought.

Juno calls everyone out on things they do wrong like normal adolescence. She has a different

perceptive on what is right. She doesn’t think ahead or all the way abstractly yet. In the begging

of the movie, she had that adolescent perception that this can’t be happening to me. Adolescent

tend to think they are invincible. She is gradually thinking more abstractly by the end of the

movie. Her maturity level grew from the begging of the movie to the end. This shows how

gradually maturing takes.

Psychosocial

Psychosocial development

Erik Erikson had a psychodynamic view in his theory of psychosocial development. It

emphasized our social interaction with other people. According to Erikson, society and culture

both challenge and shape us. How you are is based on your culture and interacts with your

culture in his mind. Psychosocial development has to do with our interactions with and

understandings of one another, as well as in our knowledge and understanding of ourselves as

members of society. Erikson theory has eight stages that move along with the age of a person. It

is a fixed pattern that people go through. Each stage presents a crisis or conflict that person has

to resolve. All of the stages lead up to one another.

The stage that adolescences go through is Identity-Versus- Role Confusion. According to

Erikson, teenagers try to figure out what is unique about them. They try to discover their

particular strengths and weaknesses and the role they can best play in their future lives. The

discovery process is basically like dress up. The adolescent has to try on different roles or

choices to see where they work best in their head best on their capabilities and views about

themselves. In this stage, adolescence are try to understand who they are by narrowing and

making choices about their personal, occupational, sexual, and political commitments.

According to Erikson, adolescences that stumble in their effort to find a suitable identity

may go off course. So, they adopt socially unacceptable roles as a way of expressing what they

don’t want to be or they may have difficulty forming and maintain relationships in short term and

long term. Their sense of self becomes “diffuse,” failing to organize around an identity. This is

what parents and society would call a rebel. On the other hand, teens that are successful in

making an identity set a foundation for future psychosocial development. They develop

capabilities and believe in them. They develop an accurate sense of who they are. They are more

prepared to visualize a path that takes full advantage of what their strengths allow them to do.

Finding this identity is not an easy task. Societal pressures are high during this stage.

Adolescence is repeatedly asked about what there future plans are for post high school by parents

and friends. For example, if they are going to work, go to college, and/or trade school. When in

high school, everything is universal but when that ends that stops. Adolescents have to face

decisions about whether they should follow a college or vocational track. Adolescents are

constantly being asked about there future paths. They tend to increasingly rely on their friends

and peers as a source of information. Some adolescence feels they can’t make the choices on

their own so they look to peers. An interesting turn of events happens. The adolescent depends

less on adults. Which means there is an increasing dependence on their peer groups. Adolescents

tend to compare themselves to others because it helps them clarify their own identities.

During this period, there are many pressures so adolescents tend to pursue psychological

moratorium. Psychological moratorium is a period during which adolescents take time off from

upcoming responsibilities of adulthood and explore various roles and possibilities. An example

of this is many college students take a semester or year off to travel, work, or find some other r

way to examine their priorities. However, because of tings like the economy, adolescence must

work part time after school and take jobs immediately after graduation from high school to stay

afloat. The result is that many adolescents have little time to experiment with their identities and

experience psychological moratorium.

Erikson’s theory as a criticism. He used male identity development as the standard

against which to compare female identity. He saw in males that as they develop intimacy, they

first have to achieve a stable identity. Some critics say Erikson’s view is male oriented and has

male oriented concepts of individuality and competitiveness.

Erikson’s view on intimacy is quite interesting. He believed that the development of a

firm identity must precede the development of deep intimacy. He had strong feels about when

true intimacy arose between two people their identities became merged. This merger not only

affected and modified both their personal identities but also made a new identity, which was a

joint identity for the couple. This doesn’t mean that people lose their individual identities; their

individual identities are actually enhanced. During this stage, the focus is on forming an

acceptable identity. The next stage intimacy-verse-isolation as more to do with intimacy.

In the movie Juno, she exhibits adolescent psychosocial development. She is affected by her

culture. You can see this by the way she dresses, talks, and her attitude. Her friends dress like her

and talk like her. She seems to get her sarcasm from different people around her. I think its kind

of a coping mechanism. The talk with her parents was not confrontational. That might be why

she is a none confrontational person. Her social interactions and culture shaped her.

Adolescent identity achievement

Psychologist James Marcia proposed four categories of adolescent identity. The first

category is identity achievement, second is identity foreclosure, third is moratorium, and fourth

identity diffusion.

Adolescence can go through this many times. Adolescence can go through all of these,

some of these, and/or none of these categories. It just depends on the adolescent. A big thing

about the four categories is the adolescent has to go through experiences to decide things. That’s

when identity achievement comes into play.

The task of identity achievement has 2 parts, which are crisis and commitment. Crisis is

the period of decision making when old values/beliefs are reexamined. Commitment is accepting

a specific role, value, ideology, and belief system. Some things that involve commitment can be

that when teenagers pick a belief system it might not be what there parents belief, which can

scare some parents. You could also use the example of political parties. The teenager may adopt

being a democrat when their parents are republican. This can scare and make parents

uncomfortable but it’s the way things work.

Identity achievement is when teenagers in this specific identity status have successfully

explored and thought through who they are and what they want to do. During this period, a

person has been through crisis during which they considered various alternatives. Basically these

teenagers have committed to a specific identity. Teens that have reached this identity status tend

to be the most psychologically healthy, higher in achievement motivation and moral reasoning

then teenagers of any other status.

Identity foreclosure is when an adolescent has made a commitment without going

through crisis and has not reassessed their old position. They have not explored alternatives and

have just accepted other’s decisions on what’s best for them. Adolescence can be happy and self-

satisfied but they also have a high need for social approval and tend to be authoritarian.

Moratorium is when an adolescent has explored alternatives to some degree but has not

yet committed themselves. They are in the crisis but have not come out yet. These adolescent

tend to show high anxiety and experience psychological conflict. These adolescents are also

lively, appealing, and seek intimacy with others. The adolescents will typically settle on an

identity, but only after something of a struggle.

Identity diffusion is the category where the adolescent as not explored and has not

committed to consider various alternatives. These adolescents tend to be flighty and shift from

one thing to the next. According to Marcia, their lack of commitment impairs their ability to

form close relationships and they tend to be socially withdrawn.

Like I said before, adolescence can go through these in different order, only go through

some, go through all or none at all. One of the switchbacks is called “MAMA” cycle. It’s when

the adolescent move back and forth between moratorium and identity achievement. Now I’m

going to back track. Before you can go through this 4-category process, adolescence has to go

through the development of self. This is how the adolescent views himself or herself. How they

view themselves can contribute to the type of experiences and outcomes that can happen. This

also can affect which of the 4 categories that the adolescent experience more of and/or why the

adolescent doesn’t experience any. The development of self has differentiated spheres.

The adolescent general self-concept has 4 branches. The first is Academic, the second is

social, the third is emotional, and the fourth is physical self-concept. Academic self-concept has

to do with education. Things like English, history, math, and science. Adolescent have to figure

out which one they are best at and if they want to use it in their future careers. Social self-

concept has to do with peers and significant others. Relationships with others are so important to

an adolescent life. It gives them a sense of purpose when going to school. Emotional self-concept

has to do with particular emotional states. This is when the adolescent thinks about how they feel

about there relationships with others. Do they feel content and happy? Are they stressed and feel

out of it? Physical self-concept has to do with physical ability and physical appearance.

Adolescents are very focused on the way they dress and how they appear to others in society.

This is why when you go to another culture they look so similar. This is also why it’s important

for teens to get involved in school activity like sport or theater. All of these are intertwined with

each other. During adolescence, these views become more refined. Identity shapes the way

adolescence view them selves. It also shapes the way they view themselves in the future. This

can be a factor when thinking about what they want to be and what to do. Some adolescents feel

uncomfortable if they don’t have a plan for the future and some teens feel uncomfortable if they

do have a set plan. Every teenager’s general self-concept is different. It can change very easily

and is never concrete.

In the movie Juno, she goes through adolescent identity achievement. She is

trying to figure out where she stands academically, socially, emotionally, and physically.

She is going through crisis and commitment. She asks her friends for advice because that is

the second most influential audience to an adolescent. The first would be parents and that

might be why she was having a hard time telling them. She is afraid of what they might

think and what their reaction might be.